CAMBRIDGE, MA -- When navigating a place that we’re only somewhat familiar with, we often rely on unique landmarks to help make our way. However, if we’re looking for an office in a brick building, and there are many brick buildings along our route, we might use a rule like looking for the second building on a street, rather than relying on distinguishing the building itself. Until that ambiguity is resolved, we must hold in mind that there are multiple possibilities (or hypotheses) for where we are in relation to our destination. In a study of mice, MIT neuroscientists have now discovered that these hypotheses are explicitly represented in the brain ...

A new AI tool to predict the spread of infectious disease outperforms existing state-of-the-art forecasting methods. The tool, created with federal support by researchers at Johns Hopkins and Duke universities, could revolutionize how public health officials predict, track and manage outbreaks of infectious diseases including flu and COVID-19. “COVID-19 elucidated the challenge of predicting disease spread due to the interplay of complex factors that were constantly changing,” said author ...

During the first meeting of the Global Think-tank on Steatotic Liver Disease, supported by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) and held in the Palau Macaya of Barcelona on 5–6 June, more than 100 international experts issued a stark warning: millions of people will continue to go unseen by healthcare systems unless early detection and person-centred care for liver disease are prioritised without delay.   A common but invisible disease Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) affects around 33% of adults globally. Its more aggressive form, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH), is estimated to affect 5% of the general ...

Tokyo, Japan – Hailed as one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century, transistors are integral components of modern electronics that amplify or switch electrical signals. As electronics become smaller, it is becoming increasingly difficult to continue scaling down silicon-based transistors. Has the development of our electronics hit a wall? Now, a research team led by the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, has sought a solution. As detailed in their new paper, to be issued in 2025 Symposium on VLSI Technology and Circuits , the team ditched the silicon and instead opted to create a transistor made from gallium-doped ...

Highlights - Development of the world's first practical surface-emitting laser suitable for optical fiber communications systems. - Utilization of quantum dots as an optical gain medium, enabled by NICT's high-precision crystal growth technology and Sony's advanced processing technology. - A significant advancement toward miniaturization, reduced power consumption, and cost efficiency of light sources used in optical fiber communication systems. Abstract The National Institute of Information ...

Sepsis is when the immune system overshoots its inflammatory reaction to an infection, so strongly that the vital organs begin to shut down. It is life-threatening: each year in the US alone, approximately 750,000 patients are hospitalized for sepsis, of which approximately 27% die. In about 15% of cases, sepsis worsens into septic shock, characterized by dangerously low blood pressure and reduced blood flow to tissues. The risk of death from septic shock is even higher, between 30% and 40%. The earlier patients with sepsis are treated, the better their prospects. Typically, they receive ...

Dual Breakthroughs in Diabetes Cure and Organ Regeneration Redefine Medical Frontiers   NANJING, China – In a revolutionary one-two punch, Chinese research teams have successfully engineered the human spleen into a living bioreactor capable of curing diabetes and growing functional organs – achievements published back-to-back in Science Translational Medicine and Diabetes this month. This convergence of discoveries positions the long-underestimated spleen as a game-changing platform for regenerative medicine.   ​The Spleen Solution: From Biological Filter to Life-Saving Factory Once considered expendable, the spleen now emerges as the body’s ...

A Cambridge criminologist has uncovered new evidence in the killing of a priest, John Forde, who had his throat cut on a busy London street almost seven centuries ago. The case is among hundreds catalogued by the Medieval Murder Maps project at Cambridge University’s Institute of Criminology, a database of unnatural death in England during the 14th century. This one, however, has a few twists.   Records traced by Prof Manuel Eisner suggest that John Forde’s slaying in 1337 was a revenge killing orchestrated by a noblewoman ordered to enact years of degrading penance after the Archbishop of Canterbury discovered the clergyman was her lover – possibly from ...

Dust particles thrown up from deserts such as the Saraha and Gobi are playing a previously unknown role in air pollution, a new study has found.   The international study published in National Science Review has revealed that contrary to long-held scientific assumptions, aged desert dust particles which were once considered too big and dry to host significant chemical reactions actually act as "chemical reactors in the sky"—facilitating the formation of secondary organic aerosols (SOA), a major component of airborne particles.   Published in a collaborative effort led by scientists ...

The bioarchaeological investigation of the Bronze Age cemetery of Tiszafüred-Majoroshalom has shed new light on an important period in Central European history. An international research team – led by Tamás Hajdu, associate professor at the Department of Anthropology at ELTE and Claudio Cavazzuti, senior assistant professor at the University of Bologna, has shown that around 1500 BC, radical changes occurred in people’s lives: they ate and lived differently, and the social system was also reorganized. The ...

For the first time, researchers have demonstrated in an intact plant a long-contested process that allows some plants to rebound from extended drought. The team of Colorado State University, University of Colorado and U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists says understanding this special trait could improve agricultural productivity and food security.   Drought costs the United States billions in agricultural losses and increased irrigation. Lost productivity lowers food availability and raises prices for ...

Earlier this year, Facebook rolled back rules against some hate speech and abuse. Along with changes at X (formerly Twitter) that followed its purchase by Elon Musk, the shifts make it harder for social media users to avoid encountering toxic speech. That doesn’t mean that social networks and other online spaces have given up on the massive challenge of moderating content to protect users. One novel approach relies on artificial intelligence. AI screening tools can analyze content on large scales while sparing human screeners the trauma of constant exposure to toxic speech. But AI content ...

A global research project endorsed by the United Nations called "MegaMove" has tracked over 100 marine megafauna species, identifying the most critical locations in our global oceans for better marine conservation efforts, drawing from UC Santa Cruz's vast data sets on marine-mammal movements and behaviors. In a report published today in Science, the international team of scientists comprising MegaMove show where protection could be implemented specifically for the conservation of marine megafauna. This category of creatures include some of the ocean’s most recognizable denizens: sharks, whales, turtles, and seals. They ...

For decades, a population of grouse in south-central Wyoming and northwest Colorado has been identified as Columbian sharp-tailed grouse, the same subspecies that can be found in far western Wyoming near Jackson along with Idaho, northern Utah and parts of the Pacific Northwest. But new research led by University of Wyoming scientists has found that the 8,000-10,000 sharp-tailed grouse found in the shrublands and high deserts of southern Carbon County and northwest Colorado are not Columbian sharp-tailed grouse. Nor are they more closely related to plains sharp-tailed grouse -- a subspecies found in portions of ...

NEW ORLEANS – Ochsner Health is proud to announce Abdul Khan, MD, has been named the new chief executive officer of Ochsner River Region, effective June 1. In this role, Dr. Khan will maintain oversight of Ochsner facilities and care offered in Kenner, Luling, Destrehan and LaPlace, including Ochsner Medical Center – Kenner, Ochsner Medical Complex- River Parishes and St. Charles Parish Hospital. “I am deeply honored to serve as CEO of Ochsner River Region. It is a privilege to be part of an organization that is committed to our community and transforming lives through innovative, ...

Vulnerable communities in the Southeastern United States must look to the future, not the past, to prepare for climate disasters, according to researchers at the Feinstein International Center, located at the Gerald J. and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. In a recent paper published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, the researchers document substantially higher risk of extreme temperatures and flooding in the Southeast U.S.  The researchers' work, which was supported by a NASA cooperative grant, also includes a proposed framework to help these communities better prepare ...

Woods Hole, Mass. (June 5, 2025) -- A team of international scientists, including from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, have tracked over 100 marine megafauna species, identifying the most critical locations in our global oceans for better marine conservation efforts, and the establishment of effective Marine Protected Areas (MPAs), according to new research published in Science. The global UN-endorsed research project, MegaMove, involves almost 400 scientists from over 50 countries, showing where protection could be implemented specifically ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Can a small fish help identify possible treatments for an ultra-rare inherited disease found in an Alabama boy? The genetic disease is XMEA, which progressively weakens the muscles and can affect the liver and heart. As of March 2024, only 33 cases had ever been seen worldwide. After the DNA sequence of the boy’s genome showed a mutation in the VMA21 gene, one of the known causes of XMEA, University of Alabama at Birmingham and Children’s of Alabama pediatric neurologist Michael Lopez, M.D., Ph.D., referred the family to the UAB Center for Precision Animal Modeling, or C-PAM. At C-PAM and in collaboration with a Canadian group, research led ...

Long before COVID-19 forced most of the world behind masks and into isolation, viral diseases had been persistently jumping from humans to primate species, with drastic consequences. The problem became particularly stark on Dec. 31, 2016, when a viral outbreak was detected at a field site for research on chimpanzees, called Ngogo, in Uganda's Kibale National Park. The outbreak, from a virus that originated in humans, ultimately killed 25 of the nearly 200 Ngogo chimps, which researchers have studied for 30 years. A new study led by a University of Arizona primatologist, published in the journal Biological Conservation, provides ...

Dr. Warren Johnson, a professor emeritus of medicine and founding director of Weill Cornell Medicine’s Center for Global Health, has been awarded the institution’s Joan and Sanford I. Weill Exemplary Achievement Award. Weill Cornell Medicine established the Weill Award in 2018 in honor of the institution’s preeminent benefactors, Joan and Sanford I. Weill, and to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the institution’s renaming. The award, which carries a $50,000 cash prize, is presented to an exceptional faculty member whose transformational work enhances health care ...

Embargoed for release: Thursday, June 5, 4:00 PM ET Key points: Nearly one-third of nutrition clinical trial participants who adopted and adhered to a healthy diet did not lose any weight, but still saw significant improvements to their cardiometabolic health, including higher HDL cholesterol, lower levels of leptin, and less visceral fat. The findings demonstrate that individuals resistant to weight loss may still achieve meaningful health benefits with lifestyle changes. Cutting-edge omics tools revealed 12 specific DNA methylation sites that strongly predict long-term weight loss—a novel finding that shows how some people may be ...

A new international study involving researchers from Durham University has revealed that climate change is accelerating the rate of development and global abundances of antibiotic resistance bacteria in soils.   The findings, published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, highlight a new and deeply concerning less seen consequence of global warming to public health.   The study shows that rising global temperatures are significantly increasing the abundance of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) and virulence factors in soil microbial ...

An agile, transparent, and ethics-driven oversight system is needed for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to balance innovation with patient safety when it comes to artificial intelligence-driven medical technologies. That is the takeaway from a new report issued to the FDA, published this week in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Leo Celi of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and colleagues.  Artificial intelligence is becoming a powerful force in healthcare, helping doctors diagnose diseases, monitor patients, and even recommend treatments. Unlike traditional medical devices, many AI tools continue ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL Thursday, 5 June 2025 at 14:00 (2:00 pm) U.S. Eastern Time (8pm South Africa time, 7pm UK time) JOINT MEDIA RELEASE Study finds dehorning of rhinos drastically reduces poaching More rhino images and video clips available via the link below An international study published today (5 June 2025) in the prestigious journal Science found that dehorning rhinos resulted in a drastic reduction in poaching of these endangered animals. This is based on the analysis of data across 11 reserves in the Greater Kruger region of South Africa between 2017 and 2023. Poaching for their horn is a major threat to the world’s five rhino species. The project was a collaboration ...

Scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have found that levels of circulating taurine, a conditionally essential amino acid involved in multiple important biological functions, is unlikely to serve as a good biomarker for the aging process. In blood samples from humans, monkeys, and mice, scientists found that circulating taurine levels often increased or remained constant with age. Analysis of longitudinal data showed that within individual differences in taurine levels often exceeded age-related changes. Researchers also found that taurine levels were inconsistently associated with ...